


Reprisal of an Old Mistake

by pariahpirate



Series: the ascendant sign [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Body Horror, Child Abuse, Child Soldiers, Gen, Human Experimentation, Indulgence into my love of body horror!, Magitek Aranea, Magitek Prompto, Magitek Soldiers, Prompto Origin Story, Unethical Experimentation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:51:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9356324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pariahpirate/pseuds/pariahpirate
Summary: Doctor Lucretia Durus is hardly mentioned in the hierarchies of Niflheim, however it was her dedication to science that led the Empire through the very first Magitek models.(A study into Magiteks and the nature of monsters)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Mate I just love Magitek Prompto stories and theories and I like monster boys so I wrote this and I will inevitably write more

The room is sizable. Generously so, to a point where she feels guilty. If the room had not been so large, maybe she wouldn’t have made such a gods-accursed mess of it. Mountains of research occupy every flat surface. Piles of notes and boxes of files and oodles of speculations and yet-to-be-tested hypotheses haphazardly scrawled on blackboards fill the wide room. Empty mugs, stained with coffee rings and tea dregs litter the room, testaments of sleepless nights and frazzled mornings. They all stand, some upright, some free on their sides, as proof of days spent among nothing but barren work. The sight is dismal for any scientist, and beyond horrifying to anyone else. It’s the sight of dead ends and frustration.

It is her personal Hell.

She breaths in through her nose, slow and steady, as she rides out another wave of vertigo. The mess had never bothered her before. No, the sight of endless musings and unanswered questions had only served to fuel her knowledge questing in the past. But that has changed. She has changed. Now the notes and blackboards only make her sick. She wants them gone. Burned, if she can get away with it. She ought to take her pet projects to the grave with her. She refuses to let Besithia take credit for another one of her achievements. She’ll be damned before that happens - damned and forever drowning in The Late Goddess’s accursed river of souls.

It stings. Burns her up inside, so hot and painful that it just might consume her. But she can’t let that happen. No. Not now. Not when there is still so much for her to do, and precious time is slipping away from her. Her days are numbered. Her hourglass nearly spent.

A trifling consequence stands in her way. The old wives from her hometown had told her, had warned her that with youth came the misconception of immortality. She remembers scoffing, saying she knew that. She remembers each and every one of her quick retorts - _immortality cannot be achieved_  and  _the only thing that is truly immortal is the chaos of man_  and countless others. She remembers being a precocious youth, far too smart for her own good, and equally as arrogant. The hubris in her mistakes rears its head now. Now she truly understands the coming death as it hands over her shoulder.

It mocks her. It must. Everyone else seems to, so why wouldn’t the Forgotten Goddess?

“Come, pity poor Etro…” She hums to herself as she wades through years of work with slow, careful steps, “She was left all alone…”

She sits neatly on the floor, pulling the small wastepaper basket to her side. She smooths the folds in her skirt meticulously. Her thin fingers, cold and nimble, twitch. She picks up a file - _Project Yuel_  emblazoned on the first page. She snaps it shut and refuses to feel.

“Her blood pouring forth…” She sings to herself as she pulls out a lighter, “In Chaos to atone…”

“Queen of nothing, Goddess of Death…” The words fall from her, just as they curl and char and become ash on the page. She watches the fire she started consume months of her work. She watches at it slowly eats page after page, file after file, until her wastepaper basket is a little less than a bonfire.

“...So let it be known…”

 

* * *

 

It’s not much of a rumor if it’s true, but all the same, word spreads.  
  
Doctor Lucretia Durus, appointed head of Laboratory VII, burned every last scrap of paper in her office, all in one night, long after everyone had retired. Her spacious office, once a nightmare of messes, sat empty and void. Empty and void, save for one blackboard in the near center of the room, upon which new speculations and new hypotheses were scribbled. It wasn’t very much. The tiny print barely covered one side. Nevertheless, it was something. It was something new.

And she called it Project Etro.

 

* * *

 

To the vast majority of scientists that know of her, Doctor Lucretia Durus is a cold, cruel woman. To the small minority of scientists that work under her, Doctor Lucretia Durus is a _monster_.

“Subject 34 has expired. Please attend to the body.” She says, jotting down the new set of observations for Subject 37. She does not look up from her clipboard, and her voice never strays from her clipped, uncaring tone. Immediately she is saluted by two of her underlings. They wear faces of fear and concern, and she immediately assumes they must be new. Old hats would simply obey her without the facial expressions and moral hangups.

She is too far gone for morals - hers or otherwise.

She has always been too far gone.

“Make sure to send the body to the mortician team. I need every last detail recorded.” She says. The two scientists still have not moved. Irritating. She is forced to look up from her notes. Her eyes bore into two new faces. The scathing red-framed indigo eyes convey what should already be known. When she asks, she expects immediate results. Nothing less will suffice. She does not have time to squander. Idiots who gap and stare waste precious time. It is distasteful and inconveniencing.

Inconveniencing, much like her own parasites.

 

* * *

 

“The father?” Doctor Lucretia Durus’ face is pinched oddly. Her eyes are cold. They are always cold, but right now there was a glimmer of mirth. It is icy and savage. “Such niceties are pointless. No father, only a sperm donor.”

To her, the two are different. They are very different to her. They are also amusing to an unfounded degree. It’s a shame that her smile is utterly terrifying in every conceivable way.

“All subjects were fertilized by the same donor to stamp out as many uncontrollable variables as possible.” She says, removing the pen from its place behind her ear to jot down more notes. A lock of fair hair falls free and she smoothly tucks it back in place. Such beauty held in such cruelty.

Minister Verstael Besithia is the sperm donor. Blood tests performed in secret, without the discretion of Doctor Lucretia Durus, all confirm this. Everyone knows, though nobody dares breathe a word. It’s no secret that she quietly despises Besithia. Why she chose him as a donor is beyond the realm of logic. All that’s known for certain is that the spawn will be true monsters, through and through. With or without the scourge in their veins.

“Now please attend to Subject 29. I believe it might be dying.”

 

* * *

 

“No out of the ordinary symptoms for Subject 18.”

 

There are never any out of the ordinary symptoms for Subject 18, because Subject 18 is Doctor Lucretia Durus herself. Having a monster growing inside her is no issue for her because she was a monster long before she contracted the scourge. Her body is accustomed to it.

 

* * *

 

Project Etro sees the premature death of sixteen mothers, the premature deamonification of twelve test subjects, and four early stillborns. A cross section of the stillborns reveals that the placenta had transformed at some point into reptilian-esque eggs, and immediately plans are reworked to accommodate such a development. Half-gone mothers spend hours screaming on tables as emergency c-sections are performed three months early because none would have survived the standard nine months. Two mothers were lost anyways, but Doctor Lucretia Durus is a monster, and cares very little. The surviving eggs are intact, all twenty-two of them, and that is all that matters. She orders the mothers to be _taken care of_ , her voice as cold and uncaring as Shiva’s deathly touch, and, as efficiently as anyone post-surgery could be, busies herself with proper protocols and situating the eggs in a suitable environment.

Six months of that little parasite, she thinks, as her gaze rests on the dark leathery shell of the eggs. Her fingers twitch and grip the armrests of her wheelchair. Under the force and stress, they turn white-green.

They’re being cared for like reptilian eggs, kept swaddled in a nest of blankets in a low-lit room. She sits in the wheelchair, weak from labor strains and the disease in her veins. She knows that she might as well get comfortable, because between the two, she’ll likely not walk in this body again. A foreseen side-effect of her dedication, one that she can easily live with. She is mobile enough for her work.

The hard part is over. All that remains is to observe and test and modify the bases. Once they hatch, naturally. Nothing can be done as of yet but mind the readings obtained from the eggs.

Some eggs are speckled crimson, gleaming on the ebony shells. Others are a dull black, lacking lustre. There are two which are a pretty obsidian, the shine on their shells almost pearlescent. One is entirely burgundy and another is vaguely stripped in various shades of darkness and blood.

She knows, instinctively, which one is hers, and for a very long time, does not register this as strange.

 

* * *

 

The strain of the scourge, her work, and the pregnancy has taken a toll. It is imperative that she remains as stress free as possible, as stress levels are linked with the progression of the disease, and Doctor Lucretia Durus refuses to die, refuses to succumb, before her work has born fruit. No, she will be alive for her triumphs, even if the disease consumes her body and she’s stuck in an infernal wheelchair, crippled by chronic pain and fatigue.

Perhaps that is the hardest part, accepting what her body has become. What is has degraded into, and will continue to degrade until it falls apart under her and she becomes something else entirely. She tries to take it in stride. Tries to ignore it and continue about her work as if nothing is wrong with her or her failing body. As a consolation, she’s gained a personal assistant who does nothing but wheel her wherever she requires and aid her with items she cannot reach or handle. At times it is helpful. At others, it is insufferably patronizing - but as with all things, she will just have to deal. Accept it and move forward. There’s nothing else she can do.

The majority of her time now is consumed by minding vitals and planning enhancement modifications. It is gathering data and materials and sitting for hours on end before the tall glass window that separates her from the incubating eggs.

Her underlings whisper in low tones where they think she cannot hear them, when they think she is not listening, but as of late she has had nothing but time and her ears have always been sharp. She doesn’t care enough to chide them, doesn’t care enough to even acknowledge it. Ah her illness must have tempered her, must have softened her. Their numbing gossip wastes time - but does it? They have nothing but time now. Even her, battling endlessly with the Starscourge in her blood and bones. She has so much empty time. There’s only so much she can do, waiting for the subjects to hatch.

Contrary to popular belief, she isn’t bored when she sits before the window of the incubation chamber. She holds a direct feed to each egg’s individual vitals and holds direct control over the conditions of the room. There are lives at her fingertips and the power she holds in her weakening fingers is thrilling. She monitors them, watching the twenty-two heartbeats flutter on the screen. How could she possibly be bored? Besithia’s beloved Project Deathless had hit another  _unfortunate_ snag - yet another batch of very dead clones - and her magnum opus, Project Etro, is proceeding so beautifully, so perfectly, that she can spend weeks doing nothing but basking in the glory of her scientific success.

The more time she spends before the eggs, the better she feels. She has memorized each one, knows each one. Knows their number, their general range of vitals, their idiosyncrasies. The burgundy egg constantly thrums with lightning magic, and often sparks can be seen dancing across its surface. The darkest of the crimson-speckled ebony eggs is precisely 10 degrees warmer than all others, while the dullest charcoal egg next to it runs 10 degrees colder, always. The largest egg is one of the pearlescent obsidian ones, the one with the heavy yellow shine. The smallest egg is her favorite - ununique in appearance to anyone other than her, being just one of the several red-speckled eggs (but they are wrong, the smallest egg’s speckles lie in even bands, not patches, how could they not notice? How could they not see?) - but it has the fiercest heartbeat. The strongest vitals. The most movement.

Her fondness for the smallest egg has nothing to do with the fact that it is hers. In fact, that never quite registers.

 

* * *

 

The hatching of the first egg is a ceremonious occasion for all of Laboratory VII. It hatches in black goo and bitter-smelling blood, and a small infant rolls out. She is very pleased to note it is mostly human save for a few deamonic traits - the beginnings of horns, ashen skin, black blood and red, red eyes. It is a perfect hybrid, alive and well. It is the greatest success, and something blooms within her breast. It must be pride.

Glasses of wine are shared throughout as the infant is passed around and coddled, the former which was unavoidable but the latter Doctor Lucretia Durus finds absolutely distasteful. Subject 12, a deep grey egg with brighter red speckles, is to be a soldier and weapon. It isn’t human and should be treated with the care that all experiments should be shown. It most definitely should not be tossed up in the air and spun about.

She observes the party from her wheelchair. She glances as her little tablet, reading over the vitals, taking note of any spikes or dips in Subject 12’s prior to hatching, seeing if there were any indicators. If it is possible to predict the rest of the eggs hatching. She does not find anything glaring or anything conclusive, but watching the live feed of the incubation room is soothing and calming. It drowns out the raucous party and grounds her.

She’s consumed in her tiny little world, consumed in the minding of the eggs’ vitals, when Subject 12 is passed to her. She nearly drops her tablet, the little thing squirms in her arms and lap. Glowing red eyes affix her with the fiercest glare it can muster as tiny ashen fists wave about with weak limbs. The small horns catch on her coat when it arches back. Nestled in soft black hair, they are nubby, flexible keratin, and ultimately cause no trouble to free. They will grow to be something truly wicked in time. She can tell, easily, to bore holes into flesh, to rip, tear, and fight.

She gets an idea.

 

A truly horrible, cruel idea.

 

* * *

 

Niflheim war-made orphans are excessively easy to procure. She honestly shouldn’t be so surprised. By the time the month is out, over forty orphans have been procured, ages ranging from infancy to a decade. More have been promised. She has a near-endless supply. Experiments, injections, and gene therapy begin immediately, using the hatched hybrid as a base reference for stability.

Project Deathless is floundering, but Project Etro grows even stronger.

 

* * *

 

The coming months hold success and failure in equal measure. Unbeknownst to her, this was her undoing. Her unraveling. This is the moment it all begins to collapse.

The moment Subject 18 hatches.

The moment Subject 18 hatches, and from the viscous black goo breaths a perfectly human-looking baby that looks everything like Verstael Besithia.

Her disappointment is guarded. Her rage is locked up tight within her shriveled soul. It is utterly human in appearances and mannerisms, behaving like any human baby with it’s wailing and hunger. All the others could subsist off blood and a few were even born with teeth for tearing flesh. This one cannot, does not. There are no extra bits, no deamonic traits. Even its eyes are human - a dull, ugly blue. It’s nothing but enraging pain.

She distances herself from the hybrids. Can’t stomach the notion that all her work, her energy, her _body_  would betray her in such a way. Everything seems to collapse about her, to the point where even breathing became a labor. And for what? For naught? There is nothing deamonic about the thing she carried. Just a pathetic ball of organs that will most certainly wear Verstael Besithia’s face.

She wants it gone. Away from her.

All twenty-two of the eggs have hatched and all but one are perfect. Multitudes of tests and modifications have been made to them. Enhancements of attributes and being. Magical affiliations discerned and nourished. It is no surprise to her that the smallest, most human of the lot is deemed the runt in all ways. It shows no signs of ability. It shows no signs of greatness. It brings her no glory. No pride. She expected better.

She watches as it is branded with its codeprints. She listens to it whimper and cry. The fresh black ink is stark against fair peachy skin. There. It is done. It and the rest are out of her hands, just as every child that survives Laboratory VII. They are gone and she will carry on her work. She has funding, more subjects - women and orphans that glimmer with potential. Most of all she has the leisure of time, even if her expiration date approaches. She’s already won. Project Etro is slower than the ambitions of Project Deathless, but it has been more successful. She has already produced what will become precisely a hundred hybrid soldiers. They are not fit for infantry, far too valuable. No, they will be majors, colonels, assassins, the deadliest of guard. Powerful. Valuable.

 

Perfection.

 

* * *

 

The mothers from the first experiment are lost. It was an unforeseen circumstance. Their deamonification proceeded at astounding rates, the trigger still unknown. Everyone treats very lightly around Doctor Lucretia Durus, as if expecting her to suddenly succumb and become. For her outsides to match her insides.

As a result of her underlings’ fears, they’ve taken to coddling her. To balance everything, she’s taken to neglecting her health for her science.

She becomes colder. She does not notice.

 

* * *

 

She dreams of warmth, warmth that she can no longer obtain without sweaters, coats, and blankets. She has become so cold. It is so difficult to be warm. The sensation is always so close, fleeting and terrible. She never knew how badly one could long for a sensation. It feels like she will never be warm again.

She chalks this all up to the progression of the disease and moves on.

She must make sure that Project Etro continues to produce outstanding successes, lest Besithia’s Project Deathless overtake and outshine her. Stable clones can abide by accelerated growth, but the fruits of her work have a human-ish life span, and they take time to grow. She must continue to rank high, must continue to surpass Besithia’s work, lest her magnum opus be rendered obsolete.

She does not have the luxury to be concerned about absent warmth.

 

* * *

 

She spends most of her time dreaming. It is her last bastion now. It is the only place where she holds full mobility and absolute agency. It is the only place where she feels like she has all the time in the world, gliding about in harmless, soothing moonlight. In her dreams there is no impending death. In her dreams there are no deamons. In her dreams there is no Besithia, no failure, no cold.

 

In her dreams, she dances with warmth held in her arms.

 

* * *

 

She has lived with the Starscourge longer than anyone else has. She’s a medical marvel. Some wonder if she is some variant of immune. Others hope that she will be able to will herself free of the Scourge’s 100% mortality rate, like some willed themselves hale of diseases past. They’re all foolish optimists. Doctor Lucretia Durus knows full well she will die and a deamon with free itself from her prison of flesh.

She’s made her peace with it.

This does not stop her from tearing budding scales from her arms with her unnaturally strong nails. It does not stop her from spending hours with files, fixing a mouth of fangs into something more human and more suited to speech. It does not stop her from hasty hair dye to hide the blue-grey mess it is becoming.

 

She may not fear death, but that does not mean she is ready.

 

* * *

 

It is a grave affair that she’s been called to witness. She refuses to show emotion. Nothing shall slip past her mask of indifference. Not even the very heavy burden of pain-touched fatigue. She sits tall and proud and cold in her wheelchair. Verstael Besithia, that vile little man, stands next to her with his hands behind his back, ever the picture of authority. They wait before a wide window overlooking Niflheim’s main training base.

Seven children are lined up in a row, their backs to a small tower of shipping containers. They’re Magitek. She knows by their uniform. She knows they are hers by their ages. The oldest one can’t be older than thirteen. She remembers that orphan girl in particular - a vicious little thing that bit several of her staff in a light bloodhaze. The introduction of deamon into her blood had turned her hair as colorless as an Arachne and evened her nervous temperament into much more acceptable hunger. Flexible, durable, lightweight. Dangerous yes, but passably so. Doctor Lucretia Durus remembers recommended her for the F1-3 series. She’d make a fearsome enemy with a polearm if she could be adequately tamed.

Seems like the military failed on that front. She idly wonders what crime the girl was being punished for. What failure would labled such an asset to be irredeemable?

She scans over the rest of the children. Nobody she notes of particular importance. Nobody she particularly remembers - until … Her mouth goes dry when she catches sight of the youngest. He’s so small. Skittish too. He hides in the shadow of the eldest, standing straight but the fear is written all over his face.

_Hers_

Subject 18. She’d recognize him anywhere. Even years later, with his blond hair shorn short like every soldier and his ugly blue eyes hidden by standard issue goggles for the increasingly light-sensitive trainees.

He should be four years old.  
  
All seven of these children are lined up, placed in manacles that can contain their strength, and to be taken away to the execution grounds - far away from civilization because Gods only know how poorly executing a Magitek experiment could go. The seven that stand, waiting in the yard, are proclaimed defects. They are slated for execution for a reason.

She restrains herself. Restrains the urge to scoff.  
  
She always knew Subject 18 was worthless.

 

* * *

 

That night she has a nightmare. 

It begins as her usual dream - the safety of moonlight, warmth in her arms. But this time she was not in control. She did not have arms, she did not have a body. She was immobile, watching through the eyes of a snake as a voice that was hers but was not cooed over an infant with black sclera and red eyes. Chubby fists with small little claws. A tiny smile of baby fangs and black gooey drool.

Soft blonde cowlicks.

_No_

She wakes with a start to find tears falling from her eyes. She finds patches of scales there when she brushes them away.

It’s all falling apart.

 

* * *

 

She dreams often now- dreams of what she relinquished.  
  
Nightmares of what was taken from her.

 

* * *

  
  
Her mouth is dry, her forked tongue like cotton. She lisps, brokenly.  
  
“What became of the disposed mothers?” She asks the nearest lab assistant. He flinches, balks. It isn’t like her to ask about something so seemingly useless. Doctor Lucretia Durus is a constant of the universe in the sense that she only cares about her work. What becomes of the half-transformed mothers she used so callously in her experimentation does not fall into that category. This is an anomaly. An abnormality. 

“To the Lucis boarder, pointed towards Insomnia!” The poor man yelps, gripping his clipboard like a shield. Pathetic creature. Human creature.

“Ah.” She says, her voice frail.

 

“Take me there.”

 

* * *

 

“Leave me.”

 

* * *

 

  
  


 

 

 

She hears voices.  
Her tongue tastes a familiar scent.

  
_”... My …. baby …”_

**Author's Note:**

> There might be more, if requested? If I get my muse to work? If people give me suggestions? Idk


End file.
